Don’t change who we are but give us a chance: confronting the potential of community health worker certification for workforce recognition and exclusion

Table 1 Characteristics of study participants

	CHWs N (%)	Program Managers N (%)	Systems-level N (%)
Number of participants	66 (100)	11 (100)	31 (100)
Type of organization
Non-governmental organization^a	22 (33)	7 (64)	11 (36)
Government^b	5 (8)	1 (9)	10 (32)
Health plan	8 (12)	1 (9)	1 (3)
Health care provider^c	17 (26)	2 (18)	3 (10)
Academia	0 (0)	0 (0)	4 (13)
Foundation	0 (0)	0 (0)	2 (6)
^dNot defined	14 (21)	0 (0)	0 (0)
Employment
Full-time	39 (59)	11 (100)	31 (100)
Part-time	5 (8)	0 (0)	0 (0)
Volunteer	8 (12)	0 (0)	0 (0)
^eNot defined	14 (21)	0 (0)	0 (0)
Language of Event
English	12 (18)	9 (82)	31 (100)
Spanish	31 (47)	0 (0)	0 (0)
^fBilingual	23 (35)	2 (18)	0 (0)
Service area
Urban	39 (59)	7 (64)	7 (23)
Rural	5 (8)	1 (9)	0 (0)
Urban and rural	22 (33)	3 (27)	4 (13)
^gNot defined	0 (0)	0 (0)	20 (64)
Geographic Region
Northern California	1 (1)	1 (9)	4 (13)
Central California	3 (5)	1 (9)	1 (4)
Southern California	62 (94)	9 (82)	6 (19)
Statewide	0 (0)	0 (0)	14 (45)
National	0 (0)	0 (0)	6 (19)

^aNon-governmental organizations (NGOs) included community-based organizations, coalitions, and advocacy and policy organizations
^bGovernment included Local, state, and federal government
^cHealth care providers included individuals or organizations providing clinical services (e.g., federally qualified health centers, clinics, hospitals)
^dTwo focus groups with 14 total participants included a mixture of NGO and health care provider organizations but data were not collected to identify the type of organization for each individual participant
^eTwo focus groups with 14 total participants included a mixture of full-time, part-time, and volunteer CHWs but data were not collected to identify the employment status for each individual participant
^fWhen both English and Spanish languages were spoken during an interview or focus group, the primary language of all participants was labeled “bilingual.”
^gStakeholder service area was labeled “not defined” when the stakeholders or stakeholder organization did not provide direct services to a specific geographic area

ISSN: 2049-3258